Stenographic braille machine

ABSTRACT

The specification discloses a stenographic machine which will imbraille a medium so that it can be read both visually and tactually.

[ Oct. 7, 1975 United States Patent 11 1 Harding 197/6.1 l97/6.l 2/1974 Sheffield............................. 101/18 STENOGRAPHIC BRAILLE MACHINE 2,680,507 6/1954 Frey et [76] Inventor: Betsey J. Harding, 12741 Newport 10/1970 Ave., Tustin, Calif. 92680 July 24, 1973 Primary Examiner-Clifford D. Crowder Assistant ExaminerR. T. Rader [22] Filed:

[21] Appl. No.: 382,178

ed .m .mm ae mb n ca vmc pt a rt 8a oh nt e T aw N am R .w T 6 0 S w B A 3 m mm 1 10 m ml cfl WW m 7 6.1 h 5 Tw 82 3 3 2 7 1 W 22 U 4 5 9 W3 w N .0 .,"62 1 n 1 M WW 7 0m w 11 1 nmuo "NW1 Wmh "c r Ha ."e uns. L C...o WM te I cl U'mF 1:1] 2 00 555 [[1 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS both visually and tactually.

852,788 5/1907 101/18 5 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures US. Patant Oct. 7,1975

STENOGRAPHIC BRAILLE MACNE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Blind persons, and those with partially impaired sight have, in the past, had little opportunity to compete with persons of ordinary sight in such fields as secretarial -work and court reporting. A paramount reason for this lies in the fact that, in many instances, the secretary or court reporter will be called upon to read back what is just been said, or to translate shorthand notes, or to provide reported information to a third person for typing, transcription, and the like. In an attempt to open this field of endeavor to the blind, various devices have been proposed to aid such person. As background information, reference is made to the following US. Pat.

Nos.:

Patent No. l,264,0l4 by C. L. Chinnock Issued April 23, I918 Patent No. 2,412,183 by W. P. Taylor, Jr. Issued Dec. 3, I946 Patent No. 977,237 by A. Swindler Issued Nov. 29, l9l0 Patent No. 800,150. by J. B. Hammond Issued Sept. 26, 1905 Patent No. 3,235,055 by W. H. Pagenkopf Issued Feb. I5, I966 Patent No. 3,254,750 by E. M. Goldner Issued June 7, I966 Particular attention is called to US. Pat. No. 2,393,781 which describes a novel clutch. The contents of that patent are incorporated by reference in the present application.

For the purposes of anticipating the present invention, the most relevent of the above patents are Chinnock, Frey and Watari. It will be noted however, that in each case, the embossing of the medium is accomplished by striking hammers. This conventional typewriter approach, whether manually or solenoid operated, always produces noise. It is therefore not suitable for courtroom use and has only limited application as a secretarial dictating machine.

What is actually desired is a quiet stenotype machine which will simultaneously produce a visual record and an embossed braille equivalent.

Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a quiet stenotype braille machine.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which will allow a blind person to read what has been recorded with the same ease as a person with unimpaired vision.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a machine which will produce a visual character and its corresponding braille character with the one keystroke.

It is another object of the invention to provide a quiet embossing stenotype machine which utilizes the same keyboard and coding arrangement as is used on conventional, standard stenotype machines.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an embossing stenotype machinne having a touch which is comparable with existing non-embossing stenotype machines.

It is an object of one embodiment of the present invention to provide manually operated embossing stenotype machine having a touch and speed comparable to existing stenotype machines.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a system which will enable a blind person to take dictation, which can be read either by a blind person or a person who has vision, but is not able to understand Braille.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be obvious from the detailed description of a preferred embodiment given herein below.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The aforementioned objects are realized by the present inventionwhich comprises a standard stenotype,

keyboard, each key of which is connected via a lever arrangement to advance a separate disk and a common platen. Each disk has a plurality of raised embossing elements about its circumference. The recording medium passes between the platen and the disks, and is advanced each time a key is struck. As the disk and platen rotate, the embossing heads are quietly pressed into the recording medium so as to leave both a visual and tactual impression.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. II shows a perspective view of the Braille stenotype machine.

FIG. 2 shows a cross-section of the mechanical struc ture for actuating the disks and platen.

FIG. 3 shows a crosssection illustrating how the me dium is embossed by the compression wedge formed by the embossing head of the disk.

FIG. 4 shows a perspective view of how the visual and braille counter-part would appear on the medium.

FIG. 5 shows an alternative embodiment utilizing a solenoid assist mechanism.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Adverting to the drawings and particularly FIG. 1, a preferred embodiment of the invention comprises a case 31, a 24 key keyboard 32 which (except for deletion of the numeral bar) has the same keys and location arrangement as a standard Stenotype keyboard, (namely 23 alpha-symbolic keys and a space key), a pair of paper guide rollers 33 and 34, a platen 35, and a plurality of separate embossing disks l23 each of which corresponds to, and is actuated by, one of the twenty-three alpha-symbolic keys. As shown in FIG. 2, each of the embossing disks (such as disk I) has a plurality of embossing heads 28. Each of the embossing heads 28 on disk I will imprint the same character. For example, if the key 40 corresponds to the letter D each of the heads 28 on disk 1 will include a slightly raised letterD and the three dots which correspond to the Braille equivalent. It is contemplated that the Braille dots will be raised higher than the visual portion, and slightly shifted with respect to the visual counterpart in order to facilitate reading. The shift of the Braille infor mation with respect to the visual should be kept small however, in order to minimize the width of the medium as well as its rate of advance. The situation is illustrated in FIG. 4 which shows a section of the medium 60 as it would appear if the keys T, P, D anad L are struck in succession. The Braille information (dots 50, 51 and 52) are shifted only slightly to the left, and slightly downwardly from the visual character.

ratchet clutch arrangement 70, 71 and 72. The link 70 is pivotally mounted at a point 73 so as to cause the disk to advance one-eighth of a revolution when depressed the full keystroke distance (approximately fiveeighths of an inch). Each key also actuates a l/ 8 revolution of platen 35 via the common bar 75, link 76, and ratchet clutch 77 The ratchet clutches 72 and 77 may be any one of a number of prior art clutch devices such as the type described in,U.S. Pat. No 2,393,781 referred to above. When an alpha-symbolic key is depressed, its associated disk and the platen rotate together so as to cause one of the eight protruding embossing heads 28 to form a visual and imbrailled impression on the recording medium 60. Platen 35 is preferrably made of a resilient material so that it can elastically deform, whereas the medium 60 is a plastically deformable material. As shown in FIG. 3, the spacing between the disk 1 and platen 35 is such as to cause the protruding head to force a depression on the medium 60 against the surface of the platen 35. At the end of the keystroke, both clutches 72 and 77 release automatically without imparting any reverse rotation of either platen 35 or disk 1, and allow the key to return to its original position.

The space key 150 is not connected to an embossing disk. It does however, function to actuate the platen 35 via a link (such as 70) and the common bar 76. The freely rotatable spacing disks 24 and 25 have a diameter such that they and the platen will be in contact with, and capture the medium 60 at all timeSFWhen the platen is caused to rotate by the depression of any key, the medium 60 will be advanced accordingly. Thus, if one of the twenty-three alpha-symbolic keys are depressed, one of disks 1-23 will be caused to rotate, as well as the platen and spacing disks 24 and 25. If the spacing key only is depressed, only the platen and spacing disks 24 and 25 will'rotate. In either case, the medium 60 will be advanced a distance equal to oneeighth the circumference of the platen. The medium 60 also passes between rollers 33 and 34, which function as a takeup, being moved by springband 90 each time the platen 35 is incremented. The medium 60 then passes to a hopper (not shown) where it stacks in a manner identical to the way in which it is stored in the magazine 61.

When none of the keys are depressed, each of the twenty-three embossing disks 1-23 will be positioned as shown in FIG. 2, so that none of the embossing heads will be in contact with the recording medium 60. When a key is struck, only the platen and the disk associated with the depressed key will rotate. When a plurality of keys are depressed simultaneously, (in stenographic work, there may be as many as eight keys struck at once), the platen and those disks associated with the depressed keys will be rotated. The remaining disks will remain stationary. After completion of the keystroke, disks which have been actuated by keystrokes will have rotated one-eighth of a revolution, so that none of the eight embossing heads will be in contact with the recording medium. At this point, the ratchet clutch will release (as described in US. Pat. No. 2,393,781) leav- 6 ing all of the disks with no embossing head 28 in contact with the medium 60. The recording medium will have a visual alphabetic character and a braille equivalent at that location on the line whichcorresponds to the position of the embossing disks which have been rotated by the simultaneous depression of their associated keys.

The medium is preferrably a triple ply paper plastic laminate. The center portion should be fabricated of the power would be supplied from an AC source or a 7 portable power pack.

The embossing heads 28 are preferrably of a size comparable with existing stenotype characters. Since the Braille portion of the information. is to be shifted only slightly with respect to the visual data, the size of the entire head need not be greater than Miinch Krinchsquare. It is contemplated that the character information for visual reading will be raised approximately one-thirty second of an inch (sufficient to produce a visual pressure image on a stencil type paper) whereas the Braille dots willbe raised approximately three-thirtyseconds of an inch (sufficient to produce a permanent deformation of the medium). The platen 35 is preferrably made of a rubberized material, which will not permanently deform when repeatably subjected to the impressing force of the heads 28.'Alternatively, the

platen may be made of a rigid material, but contain,

eight complimentary recesses about its periphery for. each of the twenty-three disks, which correspond to the information on each disk. In other words, the platen could contain the female half of an embossing mold and the heads 28 could function as the male half of the mold. In this alternative embodiment, it is of course necessary to maintain perfect syncronization between the position of the platen and disks. The can be accomplished by eliminating elements 76 and 77 and .substi- I tuting a gear arrangement for incrementing the platen 35 each time one of the disks is actuated.

The present invention is not limited in its application to conventional stenotype keyboards or machines. It may be utilized in conjunction with, typewriters, calculators, and other business machines to provide a visual and Braille record of information. Nor is the design limited to the particular structure shown. For example, de-. pending upon the characteristics of the recording me-.

dium, it may be desirable to superpose the Braille infor-. mation directly on top of the visual data rather than shift it as indicated in FIGQ4. Furthermore, theplaten and disks may be of different diameters, and the medium may be stored on and taken up on a roller i rather than in a stacking hopper. Thus, although a pre-,

ferred embodiment has been shown and described, it will be understood that the invention is not limited thereto, and that numerous changes, modifications, and substitutions may be made without departing from the spiritof the invention.

I claim:

1. An apparatus for recording visual and tactual information comprising:

a keyboard having a plurality of keys;

a cylindrical platen;

means for journalling said platen so as to permit rotation about the axis of the cylinder;

a plurality of cylindrical disks each journalled for rotation about an axis parallel to the axis of said cylindrical platen;

linkage means responsively connecting each of said keys with one of said disks so as to cause said disks to rotate when the associated key is struck;

means responsive to each key for rotating said platen each time that a key is depressed;

and ratchet clutch means for disengaging said disks and said platen when said key is released whereby said disk and platen will remain in the position effected when said key is fully depressed;

a plurality of embossing heads on the circumference of each of said disks;

means for feeding a pressure sensitive recording medium between said platen and said disks;

means for positioning the journalled axis of each of said disks so as to cause said embossing heads to 3. The apparatus recited in claim 1 wherein said em-' bossing heads comprise:

a raised alphabetic character, and;

a raised Braille equivalent.

4. The apparatus recited in claim 3 wherein said platen includes an elastically deformable surface.

5. The apparatus recited in claim 4 wherein each disk includes a plurality of identical embossing heads. 

1. An apparatus for recording visual and tactual information comprising: a keyboard having a plurality of keys; a cylindrical platen; means for journalling said platen so as to permit rotation about the axis of the cylinder; a plurality of cylindrical disks each journalled for rotation about an axis parallel to the axis of said cylindrical platen; linkage means responsively connecting each of said keys with one of said disks so as to cause said disks to rotate when the associated key is struck; means responsive to each key for rotating said platen each time that a key is depressed; and ratchet clutch means for disengaging said disks and said platen when said key is released whereby said disk and platen will remain in the position effected when said key is fully depressed; a plurality of embossing heads on the circumference of each of said disks; means for feeding a pressure sensitive recording medium between said platen and said disks; means for positioning the journalled axis of each of said disks so as to cause said embossing heads to exert pressure on the recording medium when said disk and platen are rotated by the depression of a key.
 2. The apparatus recited in claim 1 wherein said means for rotating said platen comprises: an elongated bar positioned so as to rest in contact with each of said linkage means for actuating said disks; means connecting said bar with said cylindrical platen whereby the depression of any key will cause said bar to move said platen.
 3. The apparatus recited in claim 1 wherein said embossing heads comprise: a raised alphabetic character, and; a raised Braille equivalent.
 4. The apparatus recited in claim 3 wherein said platen includes an elastically deformable surface.
 5. The apparatus recited in claim 4 wherein each disk includes a plurality of identical embossing heads. 